By Cathy Blankenau Bender
LINCOLN (SNR) – Bishop James Conley was joined by hundreds of Catholic students Oct. 27 as he took Christ to the streets – literally.
“Every year the Eucharistic procession is an opportunity to bring light to campus and invite Jesus to be with the students and staff who will walk those same sidewalks every day,” said Victoria Fassett, director of campus ministry at the St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) campus.
“There is a lot of suffering, especially mental and spiritual, on campus,” she said, “and I love that this gives our community the chance to pray for an end to that darkness and for the light of Christ to permeate every part of this campus. Not only is it a witness to our belief that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist, but it provides really beautiful spaces to invite people into following him, literally that night, and throughout their lives, and to explain to the people we pass why we are having a procession and asking how we can be praying for them, especially if they don’t want to join us.”
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The Newman Center has sponsored a Eucharistic procession at UNL each year since 2006 when a group of students saw a video made by Grass Roots Films called “God in the Streets of New York.”
“Pope John Paul II gave a monstrance to the Archdiocese of New York and they decided to process through Manhattan with our Lord in the monstrance,” explained Father Robert Matya, pastor and chaplain at the Newman Center since 1998. “The film was made to commemorate the event and students brought it up to Father (Jay) Buhman, thinking we should have a procession through campus.” The first procession at UNL was held that year.
“I remember when it started because it was the same year we celebrated 100 years of Catholic campus ministry at UNL,” Father Matya said.
The tradition has become a mainstay of the Newman Center’s schedule each fall, being held annually since 2006 – although it was rescheduled to the spring semester due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Marlene Beyke, University director and wedding coordinator at the Newman Center, was tasked with getting permission from UNL for the first procession, which she said was managed with no problems.
“There is a specific check list for each part of the procession,” Beyke said. “It has worked well and students feel ownership. It is a highlight during the fall semester.”
Students on the special liturgies committee of the Newman Board manage many aspects of the event. Students provide music for the Mass and procession, they assist as servers and acolytes, they distribute – and clean up – candles and programs, and set up altars.
This year the three altars on the procession route were provided by Pi Alpha Chi, the Catholic sorority on campus; Phi Kappa Theta, the Catholic fraternity; and the Newman Center Altar Society. Other groups have provided altars through the years, like the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS).
Bishop Conley said the procession “was very moving for me this year in so many ways.”
“The weather was absolutely perfect,” he said. “The fall leaves were on fire. The backdrop of the hundreds of processional candles carried by the students, the beautiful hymns, the incense and the adoring hearts of the students; it made for a spectacular evening.”
This year the procession went from the Newman Center to the Student Union, Memorial Stadium, and then back to the St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center along “Greek Row.”
Kate Mulloy, a junior from Lincoln, called the procession “breathtaking.”
“There is something so powerful about the glimmers of light following Jesus through the darkness,” she said. “My favorite part is always observing the impact the procession has on the community. Everywhere we go, students peek out of windows and doors and pause their activities to watch us.
“They often don’t understand what we’re doing,” she continued, “but are still able to recognize the reverence and prayerfullness we adopt.”
Bishop Conley agreed.
“Halloween parties were taking place all around campus,” he said. “As we passed one fraternity party, someone turned the music down as we passed by. We were claiming the campus for Jesus.
“The air was charged with grace.”
For his homily, Bishop Conley took the quote from the theme for this year’s mission at the Newman Center, “Behold, I make all things new,” (John 21:5) as his reflection.
He said in the movie “The Passion of the Lord,” those words were on the lips of Jesus when he meets his mother Mary on the 4th station of the cross.
“It’s a startling contrast because Jesus has just fallen for the third time and he looks anything but new,” Bishop Conley explained. “His face is bloodied, his eyes are swollen shut, blood is streaming down his head from the crown of thorns, he is being crushed to the ground under the weight of the cross as he looks into Mary’s eyes. He is trying to tell her, and tell us, that he has arrived at the moment where he is about the renew the whole world. He is about to reach the climax of his whole life on earth, his whole purpose and mission from the Father, his redeeming death on the Cross. What appears to be utter defeat and powerlessness, is completely the opposite. This is his crowning moment, his victory, his triumph.”
In the Holy Eucharist, in each Mass, the bishop went on, “Jesus invites us to join him on the cross, and to enter with him into that mystery of self-sacrificing love.
He referred to Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, (God is Love), in which he speaks about entering into the dynamic of Christ’s redeeming love from the cross at each Mass.
“And in every Mass Christ makes our hearts new again, and whispers into our hearts, ‘Behold, I make all things new,’” Bishop Conley said.
“When we are at our weakest and most vulnerable moments, it is then that we are at our best because we have let go of that ungodly self-reliance that so marks us as modern Americans, and we are dependent solely on the power of God.”
